- SpaceX’s Dragon Capsule was loaded with cargo near the International Space Station on Monday.
- The spacecraft SpaceX crew docked next to the Dragon ship that carried four astronauts into orbit last month.
- For the next 13 months, SpaceX will have at least one spaceship in continuous orbit.
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After launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the SpaceX Dragon Capsule arrived on the International Space Station on Monday.
Unlike the Crew Dragon spaceship that carried four astronauts into orbit a few weeks ago, this model was built to carry supplies into and out of space. It contained 6,400-plus pounds of Christmas gifts, science experiments and other changing materials. But the crew dragon is still attached to the ISS – it is preparing to stay in space until May, after which its crew will fly back to Earth.
So now, Elon Musk’s rocket company has docked two spacecraft for the first time on the space station.
“I just want to say a big congratulations,” said Kate Rubins, a NASA astronaut who has been sitting on the station since October after the dragon was dropped.
Referring to SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission, Rubins added, “Less than a month ago you docked four crew members,” which is beautiful. ” Agency astronaut Sochi Noguchi. “And now you’re bringing us a world-class science-laden vehicle to drive.”
The cargo dragon spaceship will remain on the station for a month, before it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere and parachute into the Atlantic Ocean. This is the 21st time that SpaceX has sent cargo to the space station on one of its spaceships – since 2012 it has been conducting routine missions for this purpose.
SpaceX will have at least one spacecraft in continuous orbit until the end of next year
An image taken from the space station on Monday (below) shows the dragon as it docks to one of the two ports on the International Space Station. The image labeled with the arrow above shows the cargo dragon’s nose cone near the top of the image and the crew dragon’s sleeve on the left.
In this picture from NASA TV, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft will depart for the International Space Station on December 7, 2020.
NASA by AP
Docking on Monday was the latest event of SpaceX’s busiest launch period so far.
By December 2021, SpaceX’s two types of dragon spacecraft – for crew and cargo – will be jointly launched into space 13 times since the company began its resolved test flight of the crew dragon in March 2019.
What’s more, if everything goes according to plan, SpaceX will have spaceships in orbit for 13 consecutive months by the end of next year.
“Whenever a dragon is launched, there will be two dragons in space,” Benji Reed, director of crew mission management at SpaceX, told a news conference in October.
The company’s next astronaut mission Crew-2 is set to begin in March. So those astronauts will overlap with crew-1 crew by May. The same thing should happen with the following mission, Crew-3: It is expected to start in September 2021, so Crew-2 should be tagged in orbit.
SpaceX won the race in NASA’s commercial crew program
From top left: Shannon Waker, Sochi Noguchi, Victor J. Glover, Jr. and Michael Hopkins pose with SpaceX founder Elon Musk and NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein.
Jim Bridenstein / NASA
SpaceX’s astronaut mission – and the existence of Crew Dragon in the first place – is the product of NASA’s commercial crew program, which puts private companies competing for billions of dollars in government contracts. In the end, SpaceX and Boeing won.
Boeing is expected to launch the first crew demonstration mission of its CST-100 Starliner spaceship in June 2021. NASA astronauts have been selected for that first flight, honoring Barry Wilmore, Michael Finker and Nicole Un Napu.
But, first, Boeing will have to try again on a demonstration mission, as the December 2019 attempt failed. During that flight, the Starliner successfully entered orbit, but failed in conjunction with the space station due to software errors investigated by NASA.
Until the Starliner completes the steps required for certification, the crew Dragon remains the only ship to land on the space station and to carry astronauts to the U.S.
